I See Fire
by Celtic Spacey
Summary: Short stories chronicling the lives of the exiled Dwarves of Erebor.
1. Chapter 1

One

 _Thorin returns from a meeting in another Kingdom to be greeted by disaster._

* * *

It had been some time since Thorin Oakenshield had last set foot in the mountain halls of Ered Luin. He had been needed to attend meetings within the Blue Mountains, and the distance from the one mountain range to the other, with the expanse of the Gulf of Lhun and the need to therefore deal with the Elves of the Grey Havens may as well have been the distance from the East to Bee.

It had therefore been many months since the exiled King had walked the corridors of their temporary home, though any dwarf worth his salt was able to remember the route of stone. So even weary Thorin was able to quickly find his way through the maze of tunnels to the door that opened into the large chamber in which had been erected the majority of the homes of Erebor's lost.

Dwalin's hand lit briefly upon his shoulder, and he inclined his head towards his closest friend. He was well. He could continue on to his own home alone, his friend and guard could continue to the cabin he shared with his brother.

Thorin listened to Dwalin's departing tread for a minute, and as it faded he started again for the little cottage at the top of the slope that belong to him and his sister.

Walking around the long building that acted as the marketplace for Erebor's people, Thorin's gaze roved up towards the cottage, and his step faltered.

Whenever he left the mountain for meetings or battle, Dis would solemnly set a candle on the kitchen window, and each night the boys would fight to light it, to guide him home. She had told him of this once when he had arrived in the night to see the low glow of such, and it filled his heart on his travels as he went to sleep.

The window now was dark, the cottage as a whole was.

A hand touched his elbow, and he spun, one hand on his sword, to meet the saddened face of Balin, Dwalin half a pace back and looking the most serious Thorin had seen him since...

Since Frenin had died.

"Laddie," Balin started, but Thorin had already turned on his heel, and was dashing for the cottage.

His pounding footsteps echoed through the chamber, and in more than one home a shadows came to window or door to investigate the disturbance in the night, only to duck back away as Dwalin and Balin moved by.

There was a murmur of voices as he drew to the door, growing louder as he pressed against the wood there, and for a second he rested his palm against it, wavered there, no longer sure if he wanted to step in and learn what had happened. For surely something had.

But then he picked up within the noise the sound of a cry; young and fearful, and Thorin squared his resolve and shoved at the door.

It hit the wall with a crash and leapt back towards him, but he was already crossing the threshold and it's passage closed was halted by his form. The noises had stepped up without the barrier of the door, and he focussed solidly on the thin cry that had clearly been kept up for too long.

"Thorin," Dwalin rumbled at his back, and his grip eased slightly from the haft of his axe, and he stepped through the hall and followed the noise.

Fili was stood on the cushion of his chair before the fire, dressed in an oversized jerkin that once belonged to him but now served as sleep clothes for the younster, hands fisted at his sides and glaring at a not-quite familiar dwarf who stood just beside the mantle. The dwarf had a pack at his feet, and his arms crossed across his chest, and the angry red in his cheeks suggested his was seconds away from grabbing the dwarfling up and shaking him into submission.

"What is going on here?" Thorin's voice was barely above a whisper, but it served to make both dwarf and dwarfling turn to face him, Fili nearly toppling from the chair in his haste.

"Uncle Thorin!" he screamed, leaping the arm of the chair and stumbling the first foot across the floor before flinging himself against his Uncle, fingers scrabbling against his armour before finding purchase and the child burst into sobs.

Thorin's hand cupped the back of his neck and drew him closer still, hand finally releasing the haft of his axe and coming around to stroke through the blond's hair. His fingers quickly tangled in knots, but the continued touch served to ease the sobs to quiet weeping.

"What is going on here?" his gaze had not yet left the other dwarf, and he now recognised him to be a relative to the boys, one of their father's cousins he had perhaps met once or twice but never cared to learn the name of.

"The boys are coming with me," the cousin stated, and Thorin mentally congratulated his nerve. To stand up to him when he was angry was no easy feat he knew, "You were gone and their mother is dead, they are coming to live with me." Fili flinched deeper into his side, and Thorin rocked on his heels under the force of the words, closing his eyes briefly. Dis was dead then.

"Balin?" he said softly, and felt the elder dwarf's presence at his elbow.

"Durin's Day, laddie," came the quiet answer "There was a sickness in the mountain. No one escaped it, some... faired worse than others." Thorin nodded, opening his eyes again and soothing a finger across Fili's cheek. He was paler than he had been when he'd left, he noted now, and there was a thinness to his face that did indeed speak of recent illness as well as grief.

"They should come with me, Thorin," the cousin's voice made Thorin's head snap back up "You cannot care for two young children, let them be with one who can watch them."

"Don't Uncle Thorin!" Fili wailed at his side, releasing his armour with one hand to instead clutch desperately at his fingers, nails digging at his skin "Don't let cousin Nar take us away! We want to stay with you!"

"Fili," Nar growled, and the child swung around, clutching at Thorin's fingers still, his other hand retreated back into the fist it was when Thorin had first stepped into the room, and the glare he levelled at the elder dwarf was praciatlly Thorin.

"No!" the dwarfling screamed "Me and Kili don't want to go with you! We want to stay with Uncle!" he stared up and Thorin then, eyes pleading and brimming with tears again "Please Uncle! You looked after us after adad left! Please!"

"Hush Fili," Thorin consoled, "It will be alright, we will work this out. Where is Kili?"

He followed the line of the pointing finger and his heart lurched as he came to the realisation that the weeping he had heard when he'd first entered the house had not belonged to his eldest sister-son, and had continued throughout the prior confrontation. There was a tiny form curled in the corner the firelight did not reach, but Thorin would recognise the form of his youngest nephew anywhere.

"Kili," he whispered, and was crossing the room without realising, Fili scurrying at his side, until he was crouched before the babe.

"Kili," he whispered again, Kili's knees were drawn up in front of his face, head bowed forwards as he continued to weep, the only bit of skin Thorin could see was of Kili's hands, clamped against his ears, tiny shoulders shaking.

The exiled King surged forwards and then rose to his feet, one arm curled under Kili's bottom and legs, his other hand curled against Fili's head, he shuffled for a minute to make sure Kili was secure, and then glared across the room to Nar; the firelight just reaching him and reflecting in his eyes, making him seem even more dangerous than ever before.

"Go home, Nar," he said dangerously "The boys can stay with me."

"Thorin-"

"No, Nar," Thorin responded "The boys have lost their father and their mother, do not take their home from them as well. We will discuss this further tomorrow, for now the boys need to sleep, as do I." he levelled his gaze on the other dwarf until he nodded, and his stare followed him out of the room.

Only when he heard the cottage door click closed did he turn all his attention to the boys. Fili has relaxed against him now that the threat of being removed from his home was out of sight, his breathing slowing as he drowsed against the dwarf. Kili still had his hands against his ears, his face buried in the crook of Thorin's neck, although now Thorin could hear his words in amongst the sobs.

'"Amad, amad, amad," he coughed then, and it quickly became a gag that had Thorin flinching and murmuring gently to the boy.

Now that Kili was in his arms he noted the sickness that still clung to the child. The face pressed against his neck was clammy, the body weighted in his arm negligible compared to how it had been before Thorin had left. Where Fili was now thin, Kili was practically skeletal.

"Balin?" Thorin called out, walking across the room. He dropped into his chair as the elder dwarf came to his side, and he nodded gratefully to Dwalin as his friend added more logs to the dying fire. Kili he sat on the arm of the chair, the babe's face still against his shoulder, and when he started shifting to remove his weapons and armour Kili whimpered unhappily.

Finally shed of the heavy leather and metal, his axe resting against the side of the chair, he pulled Kili into his arms properly and gestured to Fili, who scrambled up onto his lap and buried into his free side. Balin had settled into the chair opposite his own, the own Dis usually sat in, and Thorin closed his eyes again briefly; he would grieve for his sister later.

"How?" he asked hoarsely, and the boys clung closer.

"There was a sickness," Balin started "It came in with one of the caravans, three months ago. It started innocently enough, chills and coughs, and then they started coughing up blood, sky-rocketing fevers and nightmares and then they were wasting away." Kili coughed and gagged again then, his cries dropping away to hiccough, and Dwalin returned from wherever he had gone with a glass of water, which Thorin took gratefully and helped Kili to drink as his friend leant against the mantle.

"Fili got it first," Balin continued "He is recovering well. Kili got it next and hard, we... were all worried," Thorin frowned and rubbed his hand up and down the babe's back, Kili of course would get it the worst, Dis had suffered through his birth when her husband had died, and then she had born the child early. But Kili also had a tenacious hold on life that had serviced him well from the very beginning.

Balin sighed, and leant forwards, looking grave "For a time Oin was not sure if the child would live to see Durin's Day, and then he rallied, and Dis caught it. You have to understand Thorin, she had never truly recovered from Kili's birth; and she had toiled tirelessly to keep those babes alive for two and a half months. When she caught it, it burnt her out quickly. I think she was trying to hold on until you got home so someone could care for the boys, but the sickness won, and we lost her, and Nar has been trying to get the boys to move in with him ever since."

"We don't want to go, Uncle Thorin," Fili piped in sleepily, and Thorin hushed him.

"They stay with me Balin," he said levelly, fire in his eyes telling Balin not to argue.

"Thorin-"

"I'm not taking them from the only home they've ever known," Thorin continued "The journey between here and the Blue Mountains is safe, the boys can travel it with me when I must go. I will get them tutors and teach them to fight and they will not be removed from this house."

"You won't be teaching them to fight," Dwalin rumbled, "The only reason that you can do anything is because of your teachers. I'm taking their training."

"What about the winter, Thorin?" Balin asked quietly "The boys are too young still for the wilds in the snow, and it may be a safe route when the weather's decent, but with the winters they wilds get hungry and the boys-"

"I'll find someone to care for them then or I will not leave," Thorin swore, and Balin smiled in return.

"Aye lad, you will," he agreed "I'll tutor them, and I'll keep them in the house if you have to go where they cannot." and Thorin nodded his thanks to the promise, not just for meetings but that if anything happened to him, the boys would not be uprooted.

"My thanks, friends," he whispered "I must get the boys to bed, but you are welcome to stay the night." There was a murmur of agreement, and Dwalin followed Balin into Thorin's room. Thorin grumbled a laugh, his friends knew him well enough it seemed. He smiled down at the boys, both had fallen asleep in his arms whilst he had spoken to the other dwarrow, and they barely stirred and he stood and walked to the bedroom they shared.

Thorin curled up with the boys on one bed for the remainder of the night, and when he woke the next morning it was to Kili pulling at his nose, and Fili's rambunctious cheers as Dwalin scared Nar away from the front door.


	2. Chapter 2

Keep Careful Watch

Fili requires his Uncle's aid. However, meetings are important too.

* * *

Meetings, Thorin Oakenshield decided, were both typically pointless and exceedingly dull. He was hard pressed in fact to find a need for such things, and would much rather be in the training rooms with Dwalin, or enjoying the day with his young sister-sons.

As though sensing his wandering thoughts, Balin sent him a side long glare, and Thorin huffed out a silent sigh, and resisted the urge to drum his fingers on the table before them.

He understood the necessity of meetings, and as Exiled King Under the Mountain it was vital he attend, he was after all the voice of Erebor's Lost, but much of the meeting seemed to be reserved for arguments and petty squabbling, and very little saw anything actually being discussed and accomplished.

He shifted in his seat, and cast an eye across the table at the other attendees. They were still squabbling amongst themselves. And what had begun as an argument over the cost of rubies had dissolved into several petty arguments on jewel size and numbers, and one pair, Thorin noted, were nearly coming to blows over what seemed to be a spat about braid beads.

He cast a glance at Balin, and raised an eyebrow, and the older dwarf merely smiled in response. He'd be getting no help from that corner in an early escape.

The door into the meeting room suddenly slammed open with such force that every dwarf within startled and reached for their axes, turning to the door as it smashed into the wall and started its journey back.

"Uncle Thor-" cut through the sudden silence before the door slammed shut, and Thorin cast an exasperated glance towards the ceiling as several eyes turned to him.

The door crept open more slowly this time, and a dishelved blond head peeked around the door from about the height of the door handle, grey eyes roving across the amassed group before alighting on Thorin.

"Uncle Thorin?" the voice was quieter now, the dwarfling had obviously just remembered the exact purpose of a _meeting_ room.

"Yes Fili?" Thorin responded, and almost smirked as the dwarrow swiftly released hands from axe hafts.

"Thorin Oakenshield, I must protest," one dwarf shouted from midway down the table "This is most unprecedented." He glared at the dwarf in return, but inclined his head

"Fili," he spoke softly, and the child straightened up, half in, half out of the door "The meeting will be over shortly. Wait just a little longer."

"But Uncle -"

"No Fili," Thorin cut him off, voice rising slightly, and Fili responded by straightening up, visible arm going behind his back, head held high. He looked every bit the prince he was at that moment: even with his hair practically a birds nest, and it broke Thorin's heart almost as much as it swelled with pride to see the boy respond thus "Whatever you require can wait a while long. Stand outside of the door, I shall be there shortly." Fili looked as though he wanted to say something, but quickly nodded his head and disappeared back out of the room, the door snapping shut at his heels.

"Children should know better than to interrupt important matters amongst their elders," the dwarf from before sniffed, and Thorin bristled.

"Then perhaps we should discuss matters of import rather than host petty arguments," he rumbled, "And be quick about it, my sister-sons wait for me."

X

It was another hour before the dwarrow finally began to file out of the room, and Thorin slumped into his seat and brushed a hand across his forehead. A headache was building behind his eyes, and he wanted nothing better than to go home and eat.

"Mahal, they are getting more ornery as they get older," he groused, and Balin laughed heartily at his side

"They enjoy an argument as much as they enjoy a decision, if not more laddie," he agreed "But you are doing well, they listen closely when you give you input."

"Uncle?" Fili quavered from the door, and Thorin beckoned him in.

"Fili," he responded as the dwarfling dashed around the edge of the table, stopping at Balin's side and standing still as the elder dwarf fussed at his twisted tunic and mussed hair "You know better than to disrupt a meeting. And where is Kili?" he noted the absence of his youngest sister-son then, and Balin stilled his hand as well as they waited for a response, worry thrumming through the two elder dwarrow.

Fili's lip quivered a moment, and he wrung his hands desperately before he blurted.

"Kili's stuck up the tree!"

X

There were numerous exits out of the mountain, each one guarded by two dwarves in a hidden alcove. The tree in question was a lone oak not too far from the entrance closest to the Erebor chamber. There was a watch tower a mile out before the entrance, and an outdoor training ground between it and the next entrance. The level of protection this all offered meant Thorin was more than happy for the boys to go out the entrance to play by themselves when he was busy elsewhere, and he knew that Kili especially liked to climb the tree to watch the practice grounds from afar.

Neither had ever become stuck before, and he did not quite understand why Fili had not caught the attention of the hidden dwarrow rather run through the mountain to find his Uncle, and when he said as such to Balin his friend had laughed.

"You are their Uncle, Thorin," he pointed out "Of course they will come to you over anyone else when there is trouble. They won't consider the possibility of someone else saving the day."

"Up there, Uncle Thorin!" Fili shouted as soon as they were outside, gesturing to the tree as though another would have sprung up just to confuse them, and then he was sprinting across the grass to the oak in question. Thorin followed at a jog, and as he got closer he could hear the soft weeping of Kili that he had heard far too much of recently.

"Kili!" Fili shrieked, hopping from foot to foot beneath the boughs, "Kili I'm back! I've brought Uncle Thorin!"

As with all children suddenly aware there was an audience to their pain, Kili's weeps became wails, and Thorin briefly rested a hand of Fili's head to still his nephew as he peered up into the tree. Nodding his head with certainty as he pulled off his chain of office and heavy fur coat.

"He got stuck, Uncle Thorin," Fili said solemnly, "I tried to help but we couldn't fix it. You can, can't you?" he looked up at Thorin pleadingly, and he nodded, patting the boy's head briefly, before starting to the trunk,

"Stay there, Fili," he ordered as he grabbed a branch and started to haul himself up "I don't want you getting stuck as well."

He made quick progress up the tree; Kili was stuck some six or seven feet up, the branches were a little sparse, which meant Thorin had to stretch slightly to reach between each, but he had seen Kili practically leap from branch to branch and scale the bark of the trunk like a squirrel. The height would not have been a problem to his youngest sister-son. The tangle of his hair and the tree branch was the issue.

"Kili," he sighed "What happened?" he edged to the trunk on the branch closest to Kili's, and the child stared balefully down at him, thin arms wrapped tightly around the branch, and Thorin frowned as he observed the grazed fingers and snapped nails. Kili had tried to get loose, perhaps had slipped on the branch and scrambled for purchase. Had he nearly lost his youngest sister-son whilst he had been sat in the meeting?

"I don't know!" the babe wailed, shifting as though to reach his Uncle before his hair pulled and he remembered his predicament. The sobbing was ceased, but he sniffled and his lip quivered.

"It's alright," Thorin stretched, fingers grasping, and with a hop was grasping Kili's branch. There was a cheer from Fili below as he swung himself up awkwardly, and then edged across to the boys side."Let's see what we can do here, yes?" Kili nodded, resting one cheek against the tree and peering up with one eye.

Kili's hair was a violent tangle within the twigs, and Thorin hummed soothingly under his breath as dexterous fingers plucked at the knots and broke twigs from the main stem where they were too knotted to untangle at this height and with Kili so distressed.

"What is the song, Uncle?" Kili whispered eventually, and Thorin smiled gently at him

"I will sing it to you later," he promised "It is about Erebor, about our home." Kili smiled, and shortly Thorin made a noise of success, rubbing a hand soothingly up and down the babe's back as he drew him close.

"Put your arms around my neck and hold tight," he ordered, and started the climb back down when Kili obeyed.

Fili cheered again and swarmed at the pair the instant Thorin's feet touched ground, and he hugged both boys close as he sat against the tree. Pulling Kili away gently a little, he inspected the abused hands, the child already forgetting his terror and chattering cheerfully to his brother even as the tears continued to dry on his cheeks.

Later, it would take the song of the Lonely Mountain to keep Kili still long enough to care for the scuffed hands, and the if the child found his way into Thorin's bed with a nightmare in the midst of the night, then Thorin was telling no one who was more relieved for the warmth at his side.


End file.
